McIntosh County is home to a species found nowhere else on Earth. And only about 200 individual plants of it sprout each year.

It's the Radford mint, a tiny annual with a cinnamon scent and pink flowers that attract Gulf fritillary butterflies.

Lynda Beam of Vernonburg went looking for the plant in October as part of a preservation effort. Setting off through one of only two sites where the mint is known to grow, about 15 volunteers combed through the piney woodlands, eyes down.

"On our way back through the same area I was thinking, 'There's got to be one somewhere,'" Beam said. "And there it was in front me! It was a tiny little insignificant-looking thing, but it was not insignificant at all in terms of the environment."

Despite its rarity, the mint is not federally protected. It is state-listed as endangered, and volunteers with the Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance are working with staff from the state Department of Natural Resources to map out a plan to encourage its growth.

They'll be removing almost 1,000 acres of sand pine from one area of the Townsend Wildlife Management Area where the mint grows. Sand pine is a non-native species introduced before DNR bought the McIntosh property. The dense pines create so much shade the mint can't flourish.

The pine will be harvested for pulp, with hand-thinning near known mint plants.

The area will be replanted with longleaf pine, whose sparser canopy gives the sun-loving mint a better chance for a comeback.

Volunteers also collected a supply of the plant's tiny nutlet-like seed and have frozen it for future propagation. The hope is restoration of the natural longleaf pine cover, along with volunteers' continued monitoring efforts, will ensure one of the world's rarest plants survives in the wild.

"Everybody can relate to a mint," said Tom Patrick, a botanist with the Georgia DNR. "It is a beautiful plant, and you couldn't get much more scarce."